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Brahms Intermezzo 117.1

To get the recording train rolling, here’s a recording of a lullaby of Brahms, one of my favorites. I made this recording to play with equalization settings, but liked the performance enough to keep it.

It’s a piece Brahms wrote late in life, a lullaby. He included a motto at the top from an old Scottish folk song, which in modern English is roughly:

Sleep, my child, now sweetly sleep
It grieves my heart to see you weep.

Brahms is perhaps the most humane composer I know, most especially in these last piano pieces of his. I’ve written about the embrace between the music and the listener. This music’s embrace is tender and compassionate, and in its arms, we are all children, all loved.

Intermezzo Op 117 No 1

Thanks go to my good friend Geneviève, who introduced me to this piece about five years ago. She played it marvelously, and I’ve wanted to learn it ever since, though it took me until this spring to get around to it. So, finally, here it is. Enjoy.

For those listening closely, a fortuitous thunderclap snuck into the opening. I left it in.

Comments

brian

Paul, that’s so beautiful. This is a great idea. Looking forward to more installments…

Judy

Hi Paul,

Great site. It worked fine and at the moment I am reading a Brahms biography to make it all the more serendipitous.

Judy
D

Dear Auntie Audio,

I bought new headphones (the Grado SR-80, perhaps), so I could listen to the Brahms my son posted to his musiblog. The quality is, um, somewhat improved from that of the built in laptop speakers. Now all I need is a longer cord, so I never have to take them off! But I am a little worried: Is there any danger that all the sound that wasn’t coming out through the speakers is still in the laptop, and may someday explode, or go back down the wire and block my toilet or something?

Frightened in the Fort

D
Auntie Audio

Dear FitF,

If you are as creative in problem solving as you are in problem invention, you have nothing to worry about.

Auntie Audio
Ahree

Beautiful! I played this one half-assed-ly a very long time ago and am very fond of it. It was the piece that first made me associate the key of A major with sunlight.

BTW - Is there any way to make the sound a bit louder in your mp3s? I find myself leaning over with my ear to the computer speaker even when all the volume controls are cranked.

Ahree
Ahree

Oops – it’s e flat major, isn’t it. What a fine thing memory is.

Ahree
Paul

Ahree — it is indeed in E flat. There’s a really gorgeous one in the 118s in A major. Interestingly, I think of that one (118.2) as being sunnier and this one (117.1) being dark and nocturnal. But all these sorts of impressions are so weirdly subjective….

As for the audio levels, they’re pretty consistent with other classical piano recordings; in fact, they’re a bit louder. It’s really hard to increase the apparent volume of piano without destroying the loud/soft contrasts, and making the attacks sound all weird. Compressors are death to piano. There are these things called “sonic maximizers” that might do the trick, but they’re very expensive.

My advice: buy a good pair of headphones. The Grados mentioned above, and even the next cheaper model (~$70) are pretty amazing.

Cece

Paul-this recording, along with the later installments were wonderful. Thanks! Looking forward to hearing more soon!

Cece
Nick Weininger

Terrific! The nicest Brahms I’ve heard yet; very clean, very naturalistic– reminds me of some of my favorite bits of Randall Thompson. But perhaps all the Donizetti I’ve been singing lately is warming me to high Romanticism. Or something.

Anyway, thank you so much for this, and keep up the good work, and all.

Nick

Nick Weininger
Nicholas Weininger

Does Brahms demand a lot more pedal presses and releases than the other composers you record? Now that I’ve finally got a better listening medium (new PowerBook! Yay! iPod earbud headphones– not so yay, but will eventually be replaced w/Grados!), I hear pronounced pedal noises on this and your other Brahms recordings. They sound like pedal noises, anyway, and they aren’t nearly so common on your Bach or Chopin recordings.

Nicholas Weininger
Paul

Yes, I suppose so — in Chopin, the pedal may tend to be down continuously more often, and up continuously more in Bach. But perhaps a more important factor is that this piece, 117.2, and 10.4 are all very quiet (this one is exceptionally quiet). The damper noises have a fairly constant volume, so they’re louder relative to the music — and thus louder in an absolute sense, since I turn the quieter pieces up a bit louder. Now that you’re listening for this, you’ll detect it in other piano recordings as well. It’s far more obvious on headphone than on speakers.

Congrats on the new machine!

Paul
Julius

mojo adagio! =)

Julius
Sakura -------------

This piece is so….(speachless)! I love it. I found this site by accident while I was looking for a piece called Intermezzo. I’m researching it for my band class. Only being in this world 13 years….I’ve never heard a thing like so.

Sakura -------------
Angela

Hi Paul, I’ve played the piano for years and for some reason, never got into Brahms (I play mostly Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Schubert). It probably because the first Brahms pieces I had to learn were 3 uninspiring waltzes for the NYSSMA (NY state school music association) exams. This piece and especially your rendition of it has really opened my eyes to Brahms. I have learned it and enjoy playing it immensely. Your version so inspired me that I included it in the music played at my late father’s memorial. Keep up your wonderful work!
Angela.

john welch

i really liked the song it was great, the recoreding wasnt so good but o well but not fast enough

john welch
Marnie

This is my favourite Brahms piece and you played it beautifully. Very inspirational. Thank you for sharing your recordings!

Marnie
psherrick

Hi..came across your site by browsing today…enjoyed the Brahms, especially 39 #15…I have recorded 4 verses, gospel oriented to this piece…I love the melody…thanks for the beautiful music…

psherrick
Helga Johnson

The Intermezzo op.117 No 1 by Brahms is beautiful. I would like to know who wrote the words to it, it was a well-known German poet. In German, if possible, although I could translate it!
Could you find out? Thanks, Helga

Helga Johnson
Paul

Helga: The piece has no lyrics. Brahms does begin the Op. 117 score with a short epigraph, which is from a Scottish folk rune and is originally in English:

Sleep soft, my bairn, now softly sleep!
My heart is wae to see thee weep.

Or sometimes it appears as:

Baloo, my boy, lie still and sleep
It grieves me sore to hear thee weep.

It is a traditional song; the author is not known.

Paul